Being Kingdom Women in Today’s Culture: A Reflection on Women’s History Month 2021

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(Below are the show notes in draft.)

Hello everyone! This message has been a long time coming. Monday was International Women’s Day and March is Women’s History Month so I wanted to talk about those of you who are Kingdom women living in the world today. You know you are God’s daughter and your identity is not in this world, but in the Lord. You don’t follow a women’s movement because you are a woman. You follow Christ. 

So today I want to address the elephant in the room – the fact that there are many of us who don’t stand with the message the world is sending about women. It doesn’t mean we don’t support those who have suffered from harassment and abuse. We absolutely do. We pray for freedom, healing and restoration of those who’ve been oppressed. 

But we also know this isn’t happening to everyone and we don’t feel like we fit the narrative. We want to stand up for Christian women and men because we know what’s true.  Sometimes that makes us feel like we are alone, or we don’t have a voice. But we do. We need to talk about what we believe and how it’s different, so we know we aren’t alone. 

Now let me just say I am proud to be a woman and everything that goes along with that. God has given us the gift of nurturing hearts for doing the work of God in the lives of those we love. We have unique gifts that are different from our male counterparts. But that doesn’t make us less-than. It also doesn’t make it necessary to prove anything to the world about our worth.

I love this quote from John Elderedge from “Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman’s Soul.” He said, “A woman in her glory, a woman of beauty, is a woman who is not STRIVING to become beautiful or worthy or enough. She knows in her quiet center where God dwells that he finds her beautiful, has deemed her worthy and in Him, she is enough.”

He mentions striving and there seems to be a lot of that going on. Identity politics has become more rampant in a world focused on proving your worth, rather than knowing worth. We’re gonna talk more about that.

Now, I know as women we all struggle with that feeling like we’re not enough sometimes. But as women of God we know that’s just a feeling, because we are human, and wherever it is we don’t measure up, we know God fills in the gaps. All you have to do is look at 2 Corinthians 12:9 when he says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Yet we live in this world that doesn’t like weakness. It likes people who fight.

 Let’s talk a little more about women’s history. 

First of all I thank God for the women’s suffrage movement in the early 1900s. If not for those women, the 19^th amendment would not have been passed by Congress in 1919 and we wouldn’t have the right to vote. But that was 102 years ago. We have made lots of advances since then. Yet, what’s happening is the victimhood narrative is showing up, taking us back to that women’s suffrage stuff when we aren’t there anymore.  Are there women who’ve been discriminated against, sexual harassed, and everything else ugly that goes along with that? Absolutely! But we have progressed much since then.

*Take a look at the #metoo movement back in 2006. Many women were able to call out the sexual abuse and harassment that was happening across workplaces in our nation. They felt like they finally had a voice, which is awesome. I’m so happy that many predators were taken down and I know there are many more. But that doesn’t mean every man is a predator.

*Then there was the 2016 election when Hilary Clinton ran against Trump. I was amazed at the amount of people I talked to who just assumed I’d vote for Hilary because I want a woman in office. No. I don’t vote based on sexual identity. If I don’t agree with their policies, I won’t vote for them.

*Then when Trump was elected in 2016, there was the Women’s March the day after his inauguration in Washington. The amount of women that supported it amazed me. I had women messaging me telling me they couldn’t believe I didn’t support it especially since I wrote this book called, “Healthy Voice,” and how I “should” be there because of my advocacy for women. It angered me, because I did not agree with the premise. They wanted to push gender issues, sexual identity issues and reproductive rights. I didn’t want to be a part of that and I posted that on Facebook only to find there were tons of women who agreed. We were not alone then, and we’re still not alone now.

*Then there were the Brett Kavanaugh hearings for Supreme court in 2018 which made Kamala Harris famous for her attacks.  I know him. He is not. But it was all about finding stories to take him down. It was ugly and brutal and his family didn’t deserve it. In fact, it’s funny because one of his accusers just came out the other week saying she made it up and she’d never even met the man! But it’s all about attacking – which f again, is not where we’re all at.

It’s funny because when that whole hearing was going on I was thinking about these women who were accusers. You of course want to get your vindication from someone who has harassed you. But the real healing comes from you working through how it’s affected you. Sexual harassment is trauma and the only way we really heal from trauma is by working through it, and getting help to do that and I think we have a lot of women who have been in that place. But the work has to happen within. A lot of these women need Jesus. 

*Then there is this guy Governor Cuomo who has been called out multiple times for his sexual harassment of women, and been told he needs to be resign by numerous NY leaders. But the White House is silent – including the Vice President who put so much energy trying to take Kavanaugh down when there was no evidence. Yet, won’t touch the Cuomo stuff? It doesn’t make any sense. 

*Now, we’ve got the Biden administration saying they are going to allow transgender male athletes to compete in women’s sports – how is that in support of women?! How many girls aren’t going to play sports now because they can’t compete or they’re afraid? 

*Then they’re establishing a Gender Policy Council and President Biden is saying how he “knows we need a government-wide focus on uplifting the rights of all women and girls in the US “restoring America as a champion for gender equity.” Huh?

_____

So much confusion in the world. It’s why we need the truth in the word more than ever. We need to remember no matter how crazy it gets or how many people tell us how we “should” be to fit in, we won’t back down. Our identity rests in God, not anything else. 

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Remember the phrase, “I am woman. Hear me roar?” Well, to me there are two ways that’s playing out in our society today. There’s the women who are aggressively pushing that agenda and then the rest of us who are saying, “I am a woman of God! Watch him shine through me!”

Let me give you an example.

I was watching a show last week called, “The Good Doctor.” I was so disheartened (yet not surprised) by the way they were pushing a politically correct agenda with the women.  (Now Mind you I am not minimizing the struggles of any women who has been sexually discriminated against or harassed at work. I am simply sharing how mainstream media likes to take it to a whole other level and kinda instigate the woman who is angry.)

So the episode was called, “Newbies” and it was from Season 4, episode 3. They had these “new” recruits observing the surgeons to see which two the team was going to pick to work with them. Well, two of the surgeons are young women. One of the “Newbies,” is a tall, good looking, smart, Ivy league grad, rower. Immediately these women start putting him down. They say, “Are you mansplaining?”

Now if you don’t know what that term is, Webster calls it, “(When a man) explains something to a woman in a condescending way that assumes she has no knowledge about the topic.” 

Okay so they do that in one scene with this kid, and then another scene they do it again! They’re observing someone’s x-rays and looking for input from the newbies and they are literally completely condescending to this guy, almost like bullies. It was hard to watch. They tell him to  “Stop mansplaining,” (there’s the word again.) Then when he tries to defend himself and say he’s not sexist these two female surgeons literally roll their eyes at him. I could not believe it. This is the kind of stuff women will take to heart when they watch, and treat men in their workplace like this. It’s like reverse bullying! Doing what you are accusing the men of in your workplace isn’t going to help anything! But, that’s what the message the media is sending. You really have to be careful about what you believe. It’s why you have to know truth so much right now.

There’s another example. It’s Women’s History Month, right? The media will put certain women on display for you to recognize and look at as exemplary women you “should” look up to. But what if you don’t? I know a lot of people just love Michele Obama. But I don’t, and no it’s got nothing to do with her race, she’s  just not my role model. That goes for Kamala Harris too. When she was elected as Vice President many people were excited about her being this role model for young girls and her being in that position proves that girls can do that too. Again, nothing against her race. It’s that she doesn’t stand for values I agree with!

Who do I love to see? One example – Kayleigh McEnany who just happens to be beautiful and smart. She is a bold woman of faith who has a strong voice that is not shaken by her haters. Kayleigh was constantly made fun of! So was her predecessor Sara Huckabee! And they were attacked for their looks – one too pretty, one not cute. If that happened on the other side!

What amazes me right now is how many women are trying to tell women who aren’t agreeing with the women narrative of today that they aren’t “real” women because they don’t support this agenda. I’m sorry, what? I’m a woman. If women don’t support the whole, “women’s rights are human rights,” then you are considered not pro-women. Wrong. 

We just know we are who God says we are because he created us as women and no one can take that away from us. 

I support women every day. I am a mom and stepmom to women. I have mentored women for years. I encourage my female friends and family and they help me walk this life. But I don’t have to go along with some agenda to do that, and I’m no less of a woman WHEN I do that, thank you very much.

This all revolves around an identity politics thing with women, and the problem with identity politics is that it makes whatever that “identity” is this false god, because proving that identity becomes more important than anything else! I believe it’s a tactic of the enemy to get women to claim their womanhood as more important than their identity as daughters of God, because if you are busy fighting for your womanhood, you have no time for God.  That’s why it’s so important for those of us who are Christ followers to keep our eyes set on Him. 

The other thing with identity politics is that it almost solidifies the victim narrative, which I’ll talk more about in a minute but let me just first read to you this quote from a woman named Catherine Stimpson talking about what identity politics is.

She says (I’ll read it slowly).

“Identity politics is contemporary shorthand for a group’s assertion that it is a meaningful group, that (the group) differs significantly from other groups, that it’s members share a history of injustice and grievance and that it’s psychological and political mission is to explore, act out, act on and act up it’s group identity.”

What do you hear in that? I hear – proving self-worth, one-upping uniqueness, victimhood and reacting out of that group identity. 

I don’t hear peace. I don’t hear what we women who are Christ followers know – that we don’t have to prove anything to anyone because we know we are known by God. I don’t hear a lot of freedom. I also hear that there is a struggle in the hearts of those who are for this where they don’t feel enough so they have to fight to be enough and that just makes me sad. Why do we have to prove anything to anyone?

There is this amazing book I’m reading right now. It’s by a guy named Erwin W. Lutzer and it’s called, “We Will Not Be Silenced: Responding Courageously to Our Culture’s Assault on Christianity.”

I’m only in Chapter 1 but what I’ve read so far is fascinating. I don’t know how much you know about Marxism but if you don’t know what it is, “wikipedia” calls it a set of political and economic ideas where the world is divided into classes – the workers and the richer capitalists who exploit the workers and that creates a class conflict that ultimately results in a dictatorship and then communism. Educate yourself on this. 

The book talks about how Marxism is slowly released into the culture promising “hope and change”, progressive ideas, enlightenment and social justice. It sounds pretty appealing doesn’t it? Let me tell you more.

So Marx really believed that traditional Judea-Christian values breeds “Inequality” and “feeds on greed and systematic oppression.” Here’s where it gets interesting. “Marxists claim that the restrictions limiting sexual intimacy to a man-woman relationship within the marriage covenant were ‘invented by religion to maintain dominance of men. Belief in God and the Bible – with it’s teachings about social institutions of marriage- was the source of multiple forms of oppression.”

Oppression. Victimhood.  Seeking to make women the victim so they want to bust out. 

Now. I am a woman who works and stays at home. I have a ministry here. But I’m not trying to outrun my husband. That would not make our marriage very fun. I am my husband’s counterpart. I love being a wife and he loves being my husband. I have strengths he doesn’t have and he has strengths I don’t have. We complement eachother! 

I love this quote by Stasi Eldredge, “A woman in the presence of a good man, a real man, loves being a woman. His strength allows her feminine heart to flourish. His pursuit draws her beauty. And a man in the presence of a real woman loves being a man. Her beauty arouses him to play the man; it draws out his strength. She inspires him to be a hero.”

I know a lot of people who are against submission like to fold it into this category of victimhood. But if you truly understand submission, you know that it’s a beautiful thing. I happily submit to my husband because he is the head of my home. Am I his servant? No. But I defer to him as the leader of our home. I may run the operations of the home, but he is the head of the home.

Let’s just read what the Bible says about this in Ephesians 5:21-33.

It’s about mutual respect. It’s about being united as one flesh and loving each other in Christ. And the wife is like the church submitting to Christ! It’s very simple. Yet the world likes to take it and make it seem like it’s something oppressive. 

Marxism says in the book that, “these clusters of oppression have to be broken up; mothers have to leave their homes and join the workforce.” 

There’s nothing wrong with a working woman, but if she’s going to work because she wants to fight the oppression is she doing it from the right heart?

He talks about this thing called the “feminine ferment.” Or Feminine upheaval. It is said to be the key to “liberating” the family…”Mothers have to be encouraged to leave their children for others to raise; after all, stay-at-home moms live in servitude of their husbands and are too easily satisfied.” 

Huh? I don’t live in servitude to my husband. I serve my husband because I love to serve him just like he does me!

How about that phrase “too easily satisfied.” Are they talking about true contentment? Because yes, that’s what I’ve GOT!

The joy of the Lord is my strength! Nehemiah 8:10

I know what it is to be content in all circumstances Philippians 4:11

Victimhood feeds the Marxist narrative to get women out of their homes and get rid of the family construct. That’s not what we as Christian women want, right? We know the power of a good home, of nurturing our loved ones, raising up a generation in love and supporting our husbands. If we don’t feel like the victims, we don’t have to be. We don’t have to join the narrative. We have to stay strong and not be silenced by popular opinion. 

We are Kingdom women. We don’t see ourselves as the victims of OPPRESION because we are not OPPRESED by society. We are EMBOLDED in our faith to be women of God!

We don’t find our identity in the women’s movement. We are proud that God has made us women but we find our identity in CHRIST.

So whatever happens, we are going to keep identifying with Christ. We are going to keep fighting for our families. 

The best thing we can do is to continue to stand in and know WHOSE we are. 

Our identity as women doesn’t have to be a WEAPON when we are in Christ. Our Weapon is the armor of God.